“I’ve heard that too,” Joe said, setting the photo down and smiling. “It wouldn’t be the first time I was dragged into court.”
“We’re not talking about your ex-wife, buddy.” She grinned and slipped into a chair in front of his desk. Like Joe, Aideen had been a sex-crimes prosecutor in the Bronx before she joined the AG’s office, and the two went back many years. Aideen was brilliant and funny and had a devilish prankster streak. Her lineage was solid Irish, but she looked Scandinavian, with blonde hair, peaches-and-cream skin, and sky-blue eyes. The running joke in her family was that a Viking invasion altered the bloodlines in County Donegal, the far north coastline inhabited by her ancestors. She was short and sturdy and carried herself with a broad-shouldered, tough-but-feminine swagger that radiated confidence. “He gathers intel also. Ben told me.”
“How is Ben?” Joe asked, although he could guess the answer, and it wasn’t good. Ben Bradigan was Aideen’s husband, an NYPD lieutenant who was steadily losing his battle with a 9/11-related cancer. Aideen was leaving the office to care for him, and their children, full-time. The Hathorne case would have gone to her, but Joe had offered to take it from her as she prepared to leave state service. He was taking over more than his share of Aideen’s cases, something she thanked him for repeatedly, although he didn’t want or expect her thanks. They had always watched out for each other.
“Not great,” she said. She shrugged, a slight movement of her shoulders, which was as much negative emotion as Aideen ever projected. “He’s comfortable, though, for now.”
“The kids?”
“They’re tough, you know.”
“Not as tough as you,” he said. He tapped the photo with a finger, absently careful not to touch the face in the image. “You should have taken this one.”
“Too late. I’m outta here.” She got suddenly serious. “Really, be careful with this guy. Ben’s got friends in the DOC, and they say Hathorne is a litigation machine. He goes after everyone involved in his cases. Judges, therapists in corrections, the detectives—everybody. And now with this coming down? He’ll be as mad as a hornet.”
By “this,” Aideen meant the legal process under state law whereby a person convicted of a sex crime could be kept under supervision, either in a hospital or on probation, even though their criminal sentence had maxed out. The state’s mental health office vetted prisoners like Hathorne who were about to be released, singling out those who could be shown to have a “mental abnormality.” This meant a mental disease or defect that made it more likely that the person would commit another sex offense once released. If the mental state could be proven in court, the person could be remanded to continued confinement. The law called it “sex offender civil management.” These were the cases that Joe and Aideen’s unit handled.
In Aaron E. Hathorne, MD, they had a decent target. Hathorne was genius-level smart, socially skilled, and masterfully manipulative. His manner as a predator was gentle and unassuming, avuncular and soft spoken. From a wealthy and established family, he flew through medical school and graduated a year early.
Then, as a family practitioner, he sexually abused hundreds of boys. His MO was to move to a new community in upstate New York every two or three years. He lured families with small boys on the promise of reduced fees for medical care. Not unlike what predators on the level of Jerry Sandusky and Larry Nassar were doing at around the same time, Hathorne targeted single mothers and families in crisis. His practice flourished, and his name was widely praised. He was called a hero and written up in local newspapers and magazines. Hathorne’s timing was almost perfect. Few predators like him ever saw justice during their active years, and he almost escaped it as well.
For nearly three decades, his image was that of a world-class physician choosing small-town life over a host of more exciting options and assisting the underprivileged in his communities. Where there were desperate parents with boys—particularly mothers on their own—there was something for Hathorne to exploit. His victims almost never came forward and weren’t believed when they did. The fallout was terrible. Wherever Hathorne went, addiction, suicide, and unimaginable heartbreak followed. It wasn’t until the late ’90s that the first of his victims reported sexual abuse and was taken seriously. From early in 1973 until his multi-count felony indictment in 2000, he got away with it.
Interestingly to Joe, it wasn’t the internet that brought Hathorne down. That engine of progress was still in its infancy when Hathorne was first investigated. Instead, it was a handful of remarkably brave boys and some good detectives. They brought about the indictment and then the weekslong, press-covered trial in Saratoga Springs, New York.